


Heart-Shaped Box

by Andromytta



Series: ABO Bingo Round 1 [18]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Castiel/Omega Dean Winchester, Alpha Claire Novak/Omega Kevin Tran, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M, M/M, Mating Collars, References to Child Birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 03:22:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12448638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andromytta/pseuds/Andromytta
Summary: With Kevin leaving for college in three months without her, Claire is worried how his status as an unmated omega could make him a target for harassment his first time away from home.





	Heart-Shaped Box

**Author's Note:**

> For SPN ABO Bingo! Square filled: Mating Collars.
> 
> As always, special thanks to Nealinor for being my beta reader, making me a better writer, and being my expert on all things ABO.

Claire Winchester-Novak was laying on the dining room table, her forehead against the wood, arms stretched in front of her, senior year homework piled all around.  She was working on quite an impressive pity party when she suddenly felt fingers gently carding through her disheveled blonde hair.  She looked up into the concerned green eyes of her omega parent.

“What’s wrong, kiddo?” Dean asked, already moving to settle into the chair next to her.

Claire flicked her blue eyes over to him, and then back down to her hands, which were now twitching on the table in front of her.  “Oh..well…um…where’s Dad?”

“He had a late meeting at work.  What am I?  Chopped liver?  You always talk to me.”

“Yeah, Dad, I know.  It’s just…well, um…this is kind of an alpha problem.  I really need to talk to Dad,” Claire tried to explain.  She really didn’t want to hurt her omega dad’s feelings…but she needed her alpha, he was the only one who would understand.

“Sweetie, you know you can tell me anything.  I was in labor with you for…”

Claire cut him off because she knew this story by heart.  “24 hours, and you don’t regret a single second of it.  You will always be there for me.  Yes, Dad, I know all of this.  And I appreciate it, I really do, but this time I don’t think you’ll be able to understand how I feel.”

Dean raised his arms and backed away from the table, trying (and failing) to hide the concern and disappointment in his eyes.  “Ok.  Your dad will be home in about an hour.  I’m just gonna get dinner started if you need me.”

Claire dropped her head back onto the table and groaned into it.  She was absolutely devastated to hear the hurt in his voice.  But really, she just didn’t think an omega could possibly comprehend what she was feeling right now.

***

When Castiel came home, an hour later as promised, his mate practically pounced on him, accusation flaring in his emerald eyes.  “ _Your_ daughter is having some kind of alpha crisis, and she refuses to talk to me about it!  She only wants you.  Have fun with that!” 

Panic surged behind deep blue eyes.  Claire crises were _not_ his forte.  That was always Dean’s territory.  Cas had no idea how to deal with it when their daughter was upset.  On top of that, Dean was clearly distraught as well.  This was just way too much tension for the alpha after the day he had at work.  Using his alpha voice, Castiel bellowed, “Claire, get in here!  Now!”

Castiel heard a groan and the scrape of a chair as Claire trudged into the foyer with great effort, emerging where her parents had both been standing since Cas walked in the door.  “Dad!  Thank goodness you’re home!” she exclaimed.

Castiel glowered down at her.  “Claire, what is this huge crisis that you can’t talk to your dad about?  You two talk about everything…whether I like it or not.”

Sighing heavily, Claire moved into the sitting room and dropped into the loveseat.  She cradled her head in her hands, her long blonde hair creating a curtain around her face.  Taking a deep breath, she finally looked up at her dads, who had followed her into the room.  “Kevin leaves for Princeton in three months,” she said as if it was the apocalypse.  Cas knew that Claire had also gotten into Princeton, but she was a year younger than her omega boyfriend, so wouldn’t be joining him until next fall. It had already been something of a big deal around the house.

“That is true.” Castiel replied, tilting his head in confusion. “Why is this a crisis?”

“Because we’re not mated,” she said, as if that explained anything.

“And you won’t be until you’ve both completed your degrees,” Cas answered automatically.  This was a well-worn discussion.

Dean sat down on the loveseat next to her and put a comforting hand on her knee.  “You know how painful it would be if you two mated now just for him to leave in three months.”

Exasperated, Claire rolled her eyes.  “Yes, I _know_ all of this!  None of this is the problem!”

“So what _is_ the problem?” Castiel asked, his own exasperation bleeding into the question.

“Douche bag knotheads who are just looking to get their knots into an unmated omega,” Claire finally explained.  She turned pleading eyes on her father and it was clear to Castiel that his daughter was terrified. Now he understood why she needed to talk to him. She wanted someone who would understand the need to protect her would be mate.

“Oh,” Dean finally said as he looked up to Cas. It was clear his mate was at a loss for how to deal with this crisis.  “I’m…um… I’m gonna get the table set for dinner.”  With that, Dean got up from the loveseat and left the room.

Sighing, Castiel took the seat that Dean had just vacated.  “Did I ever tell you the story about how I met your Aunt Charlie?”

***

Claire shook her head.  “Aunt Charlie” wasn’t actually her aunt by blood, but had been her dad’s best friend since they were in college together.  Claire looked at Cas expectantly, unsure what this had to do with the crisis at hand.

“Well, when we were school, Charlie was unmated.  As you know, she didn’t meet your Aunt Jo until much later, when Dean introduced them after he and I got together.”

Claire nodded again, trying not to roll her eyes.  Would he get to the point already?

As if he sensed her pending eye roll, Cas chuckled.  “Anyway, there was this dick of an alpha who wouldn’t leave Charlie alone.  In fact, he was such a dick, that’s what his name was.  Dick Roman.  I’ll never forget it.  She was working in the campus computer lab, and I was there working on a paper when he came in, the same time as every day and propositioned her.  This happened for at least a couple of weeks before he became angry with her constant rejection.  He actually grabbed her and tried to drag her out of the lab.  I barely knew her, but couldn’t just let whatever Dick had planned to happen.  So, I tapped him on the shoulder and asked him very politely to leave my omega alone.  He made some rude comment about not seeing a mating bite on her.” Cas’s voice got tight and he squeezed his hands into fists, clearly still disturbed by the memory.   “Well, I won’t tell you the part about how I broke his nose…anyway, after I explained to her that I didn’t really think of her as ‘mine’ and that she really wasn’t even my type (I wasn’t hers either, obviously) she took me out to dinner to thank me for the rescue.  The next day, I gave her a mating collar.  It would keep the douche bag knotheads away, and when she did meet someone she actually wanted to date, it was easily removable.”

Claire just looked at him, blinking her eyes at him slowly.  “So, what are you saying?  That I should just hope there’s some friendly alpha nearby to rescue Kevin when he gets harassed by a dick???”

Claire thought she saw her father roll his eyes before he dropped his head in his hands and groaned.  “No, that was not the point of the story.  The point of the story was the mating collar.”  He picked his head up and looked at her again.  “You should get Kevin a mating collar.”  He tugged on her hair and gave her a little smile.  “You know, sometimes you really are a stereotypical blonde.”

She swatted his hand away, but giggled at him.  “That’s brilliant, Dad!  Thank you!”  She hugged him tight.

“We’ll go shopping tomorrow,” he promised.  “Now, we should probably go eat dinner before it either gets cold or your dad eats it all.”

“OK.”

***

Friday night was Claire’s date night with Kevin.  For the first time, ever, she was a bundle of nerves.  She rejected every outfit in her closet and her hair was impossible to tame.  She was sitting on the floor in the middle of her room surrounded by every item of clothing from her closet and a styling brush stuck in her hair.  She was still sitting that way when her omega dad found her, a mere hour before she was supposed to pick Kevin up.

“Um, kiddo, I think you might be late for your date,” he said.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Claire said.  The barely held back tears coloring her voice took all the heat out of her words.

“Big night, huh?”

She nodded, her bottom lip starting to quiver.

“Well, let me help you.”

She nodded again, finally standing up and going into her dad’s waiting arms.

Dean hugged her tight for several seconds before he got up decisively.  “Alright, first of all sit here.”  He steered her towards her vanity with gentle hands and plunked her on the cushioned stool.  “It’s a good thing this isn’t the first time I’ve had to untangle one of these from your hair.  When you were five, you had a brush, a comb, and gum stuck in your hair.”

“I remember that,” Claire said quietly.  “It was all Uncle Gabe’s fault.”

“So you said.  There!”  With a flourish, Dean suddenly had the brush free of Claire’s head.  “So, how do you want to wear your hair tonight?”

“Once I decide what outfit I’m wearing, then I can figure out how to do my hair.”

“Why don’t you wear your blue sundress?  You know, the strapless one that Cas hates,” Dean suggested.

“You guys will let me go on a date in that?  I mean, it’s not really revealing.  At all.”

She wasn’t wrong.  Other than being strapless, it was relatively tame.  The flowing skirt brushed her knees, and the elastic along the bodice kept it firmly in place, even without straps.

“I suggested it, so it would be pretty douchey of me to not let you wear it on your date.  And I happen to know that your dad is working late, so he won’t even be home when you leave.”  Dean could have melted at the brightness of Claire’s smile.  He cleared his throat before he continued.  “You should wear those strappy silver sandal things with it…and leave your hair down, maybe I’ll just pull it up at the sides like this…”  As he was talking, Dean had also been styling Claire’s hair. 

“Wow, Dad, this looks great!  Thank you!” she exclaimed.  “Now get out of here, I have to change!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

***

Claire drummed her fingers nervously on the heart shaped box in front of her as she waited for Kevin to return from the restroom.  Realistically, she knew that Kevin wouldn’t turn down her gift.  That still didn’t keep her from being worried that he may, indeed, reject it.  Castiel helped her pick out what she thought was a very classy mating collar.  It was a thin strip of black leather with a snap in the back.  Her initials, “CWN” were embossed on the front in fancy script, and a small blue stone adorned either side.  After great deliberation, she and her dad decided it would be best to have her initials on it instead of her name.  It was possible that it could cause even more trouble for Kevin if it was obvious his alpha was female.

When Kevin was once again seated at the table across from Claire, he took her hands in his.  “Babe, why are you so nervous?  You’re never nervous.”  It was then that he noticed the box in front of her.  “Hey, is that a gift for me?”

She nodded as she pulled her hands from his grasp and then slid the box towards him.  “You, um… you don’t have to accept it if you don’t want to.  But I…I’d, um, really like you have it.”

Kevin lifted the lid off of the box and gingerly lifted the leather from the box.  He studied it, turning it this way and that as he looked it over.  “Is this what I think it is?”

Claire nodded.  “If you think it’s a mating collar, then yes.”

Kevin’s dark eyes grew wide.  “Really?  You’re giving me a mating collar?”

“Oh my God, you hate it don’t you?  It was presumptuous, wasn’t it?  It’s ok, I um, I can probably take it back.”

The omega actually scowled at her.  “Don’t you dare!”  He snatched it far away from her before snapping it around his neck.  “You do know what this means, right?” he asked with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“What?” she asked coyly.

“It means I’m yours,” Kevin answered before leaning across the table to kiss Claire soundly.

“And now everyone will know,” she confirmed before kissing him some more.

 


End file.
